young, loud and snotty

stiv

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gotta support my boy from y-town.

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Cool. Never saw them but did see P.I.L., Iggy Pop and The Plasmatics.

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No dawg, I just wasn't feeling it. Come back next year. Work on your voice and take a bath. Sorry Dawg, its a no from me.

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I saw them a few times and they were never less than thrilling. I loved the Dead Boys and I loved Stiv Bators. Back when the drinking age was 18 there was a club not all that far from where I lived that I occasionally managed to get into before I even had a driver's license. Like when I was 15. Thanks to that I saw all sorts of great bands inlcuding The Ramones before Tommy left and the great Dead Boys.

In an era when most people were still listening to bloated self-indulgent rock, the Dead Boys really stripped it down to the adrenalin. Plus, Stiv was probably one of the best front men I've ever seen, and I've seen lots of em, from Joe Strummer, to Mick Jagger, to Bono, and on an on.

We would often go to that club early to see if we could get in and to get as close to the stage as possible. At the second Dead Boys show I saw, Cheetah Chrome asked us if we wanted to watch the sound check, which, of COURSE we did, because we were just three kids hanging around an empty club. Cheetah asked Stiv if it was okay and he said, "Yeah, as long as they pay the cover, eventually." AND he shared his beer! So, yeah, it was sublime. And funny as hell. The show was like an insane toboggan running down hill and once it started there was no letting up til the encores.

He was also perfect as Bobo in John Waters's Polyester.

I was so sad when he died.

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Updated On: 2/15/08 at 08:51 PM

Okay, and then after the sound check but before they opened the doors for the smallish crowd go come in, Stiv was talking with us. The thing to do at the time to be a punk rocker was to do your own zine (which I did, of course) and to lament how the scene and music you loved never had a chance because FM radio was in the grips of programmers who would not stop playing Grammy faves like Steely Dan. So there we were, complaining with Stiv, and he mentioned very proudly that Alice Cooper had told him he had one of the three best voices in rock. The other two? Alice himself and Iggy Pop.

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